Does God Exist - An interesting conversation between a Science Student and a teacher

# POST 0040

An atheist professor of philosophy speaks to his class on the problem

science has with God -The Almighty.

He asks one of his new students to stand and.....

Prof: So you believe in God?
Student: Absolutely, sir.

Prof: Is God good?
Student: Sure.

Prof: Is God all-powerful?
Student: Yes.

Prof: My brother died of cancer even though he prayed to God to heal him.
Most of us would attempt to help others who are ill. But God didn't. How
is this God good then? Hmm? Student is silent.

Prof: You can't answer, can you?
Let's start again, young fellow. Is God good?
Student: Yes.

Prof: Is Satan good?
Student: No.

Prof: Where does Satan come from?
Student: From...God...

Prof: That's right. Tell me son, is there evil in this
world?
Student: Yes.

Prof: Evil is everywhere, isn't it? And God did make
everything. Correct?
Student: Yes.

Prof: So who created evil?
Student does not answer.

Prof: Is there sickness? Immorality? Hatred? Ugliness?
All these terrible things exist in the world, don't they?
Student: Yes, sir.

Prof: So, who created them?
Student has no answer.

Prof: Science says you have 5 senses you use to identify and observe
the world around you. Tell me, son...Have you ever seen God?
Student: No, sir.

Prof: Tell us if you have ever heard your God?
Student: No, sir.

Prof: Have you ever felt your God, tasted your God, smelt your God?
Have you ever had any sensory perception of God for that matter?
Student: No, sir. I'm afraid I haven't.

Prof: Yet you still believe in Him?
Student: Yes.

Prof: According to empirical, testable, demonstrable protocol, science
says your GOD doesn't exist. What do you say to that, son?
Student: Nothing. I only have my faith.

Prof: Yes Faith. And that is the problem science has.

Now the student said can I ask something to you Professor.

Student: Professor, is there such a thing as heat?
Prof: Yes.

Student: And is there such a thing as cold?
Prof: Yes.

Student: No sir. There isn't. (The lecture theatre becomes very quiet
with this turn of events.)

Student: Sir, you can have lots of heat, even more heat, superheat, mega
heat, white heat, a little heat or no heat. But we don't have anything
called cold. We can hit 458 degrees below zero which is no heat, but we
can't go any further after that. There is no such thing as cold. Cold is
only a word we use to describe the absence of heat. We cannot measure
cold. Heat is energy. Cold is not the opposite of heat, sir, just the
absence of it. (There is pin-drop silence in the lecture theatre.)

Student: What about darkness, Professor? Is there such a thing as
darkness? Prof: Yes. What is night if there isn't darkness?

Student: You're wrong again, sir. Darkness is the absence of something.
You can have low light, normal light, bright light, flashing light...
But if you have no light constantly, you have nothing and its called
darkness, isn't it? In reality, darkness isn't. If it were you would
be able to make darkness darker, wouldn't you?

Prof: So what is the point you are making, young man?
Student: Sir, my point is your philosophical premise is flawed.
Prof: Flawed? Can you explain how?

Student: Sir, you are working on the premise of duality. You argue there
is life and then there is death, a good God and a bad God. You are viewing
the concept of God as something finite, something we can measure. Sir,
science can't even explain a thought. It uses electricity and magnetism,
but has never seen, much less fully understood either one. To view death
as the opposite of life is to be ignorant of the fact that death cannot
exist as a substantive thing. Death is not the opposite of life: just the
absence of it. Now tell me, Professor. Do you teach your students that
they evolved from a monkey?

Prof: If you are referring to the natural evolutionary
process, yes, of course, I do.


Student: Have you ever observed evolution with your own eyes, sir?
(The Professor shakes his head with a smile, beginning to realize where
the argument is going.)

Student: Since no one has ever observed the process of evolution at work
and cannot even prove that this process is an on-going endeavor, are you
not teaching your opinion, sir? Are you not a scientist but a preacher?

(The class is in uproar.)

Student: Is there anyone in the class who has ever seen the Professor's
brain? (The class breaks out into laughter.)

Student: Is there anyone here who has ever heard the Professor's brain,
felt it, touched or smelt it ? No one appears to have done so. So,
according to the established rules of empirical, stable, demonstrable
protocol, science says that you have no brain, sir. With all due respect,
sir, how do we then trust your lectures, sir?

(The room is silent. The professor stares at the student, his face
unfathomable.)

Prof: I guess you'll have to take them on faith, son.
Student: That is it sir... The link between man & god is FAITH. That
is all that keeps things moving & alive. .

WANT TO KNOW WHO THAT STUDENT WAS? This is a true story, and the student
was none other than

DR. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, President of India.

The Immorality of Silence - Manmohan Singh is watching the Chirharan !!

#POST 0033


Draupadi’s question (on the dharma of a king) also brought home to me the immorality of silence. Vidura accuses the nobles, kings, and the wise elders—all the less-than-mad-Kauravas—who stand by silently as Draupadi is dragged by her hair before their eyes. When honest persons fail in their duty to speak up, they ‘wound’ dharma, and they ought to be punished according to the sage Kashyapa. In answer to her heart-rending appeal, Bhishma ought to have leaped up and felled Dusshasana to the ground instead of arguing over legal intricacies.
A similar conspiracy of silence diminished the office of the President of India in the summer of 2007. The official candidate for the office was a woman Congress Party leader, Pratibha Patil, against whom there were extensive charges that were widely reported in the press. She had started a cooperative bank in Maharashtra whose licence was cancelled by the Reserve Bank. Her bank had given ‘illegal loans’ to her relatives that exceeded the bank’s share capital. It had also given a loan to her sugar mill which was never repaid. The bank waived these loans, and (it was) this which drove it into liquidation.... Six of the top 10 defaulters in Pratibha Patil’s bank were linked to her relatives.

In July 2007, the nation had a Bhishma-like person of unquestionable integrity in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. But he remained largely silent, deferring to his party’s choice of the presidential candidate. In passing, he called it ‘mudslinging’ by the Opposition, and the nation believed him. In any case, the Congress Party had the votes and Pratibha Patil dethroned perhaps the most upright and popular president in Indian history. After that, the charges were never investigated.
Draupadi’s example is an inspiration to free citizens in all democracies. Her question about the dharma of the king should embolden citizens to question the dharma of public officials, especially when they confront the pervasive governance failures around them. These failures are commonplace and they range from sending troops to fight unnecessary wars in places like Iraq or the absence of school-teachers in government schools in India. They test the moral fabric of society. When there is no other recourse, citizens must be prepared to follow the Pandavas and wage a Kurukshetra-like war on the corrupt.

The Difficulty Of Being Wise - Is Anil Ambani akin to Duryodhana ?

#POST 0032

Duryodhana had many flaws but the most dangerous one was envy. He could not stand to see the Pandavas succeed and his envy is the driving force of the Mahabharata—driving it to war, death and destruction....
The sort of envy evinced by Duryodhana was not unfamiliar to me when I was growing up in Simla. My mother had a great and unrequited desire to be a part of Simla’s fashionable society. She envied those who belonged to ‘the club’, the glamorous Amateur Dramatic Club. She must have transmitted this to me, for I grew up with an acute concern over my position in society, comparing myself to those who had things that I did not possess, boys who were more attractive to girls than I was, and especially those who made it to the school cricket team....
In 2007, Anil Ambani was the fifth-richest person in the world according to the Forbes list of billionaires, but he was consumed with a Duryodhana-like envy for his more accomplished older brother, Mukesh, who was placed a notch higher on the list. Each brother had his Shakuni, who was happy to rig a game of dice in order to win the prize and destroy the other brother. Sibling rivalry within India’s wealthiest family was the longest-running soap opera in the country, having mesmerised millions for the past four years. It mattered to the nation because the enterprises of the two brothers accounted for three per cent of India’s GDP, 10 per cent of government tax revenues and 14 per cent of India’s exports. Millions of shareholders worried if their epic fight might devastate their life-long savings. I saw in this corporate and family feud a morality play and I wondered if the Mahabharata could shed some light.

Anil’s envy of Mukesh is as dangerous as Duryodhana’s. He cannot bear the fact that his brother has more fame than him.

The first scene of the play opens in Mumbai’s Kabutarkhana in 1964. The Ambani children are growing up in a single room in a fifth floor walk-up ‘chawl’ along with six members of their family. Their father, Dhirubhai Ambani, has just set himself up as a trader in synthetic yarn in the Pydhonie market. The son of a modest schoolteacher from a village near Porbunder in Gujarat, Dhirubhai has returned from Aden with Rs 15,000 in capital. He discovers that the demand for nylon and polyester fabrics is monumental whereas supply is scarce because of rigid government controls on production and imports. This is due to India’s socialist, command economy, created by Jawaharlal Nehru. Businesses have to contend with dozens of controls in this period, which Indians wryly call ‘Licence raj’. Dhirubhai takes great risks and soon corners government licences in the black market, and begins to make large monopoly profits. His competitors cry ‘foul’; his critics call him ‘corrupt’. He understands what Leftist politicians do not—polyester is destined to become a fabric for the poor whereas they tax and control it as though it was a luxury of the rich. Hence, the mismatch between demand and supply and a black market.
Act Two: Dhirubhai ploughs his profits from trading into a technologically advanced factory to make synthetic textiles, which is up and running in record time thanks to his proximity to prime minister Indira Gandhi’s secretary. The village boy soon becomes a master gamesman of the Licence raj, manipulating a decaying and corrupt regime of controls to his advantage. He integrates backwards to create an outstanding petrochemicals company, which first makes the raw material for the textiles—polyester fibre—and then basic polymers and chemicals, until he reaches the magic raw material, petroleum.
By now his sons are grown up. They are back from business school in America, and have plunged into his company, Reliance, which is growing at a scorching pace. Opponents predict its fall after the economic reforms in the 1990s, but Reliance continues to expand and it is soon India’s largest company instead. It builds the world’s largest oil refinery in the shortest time, thanks to the project management skills of Mukesh. Next, the company begins to explore for oil and gas. As luck will have it, Reliance makes the biggest petroleum find in the world in a decade—a mountain of gas off the shore of Andhra Pradesh. It is monumental and holds the promise of easing the import burden of a fast-growing, energy-starved nation. From the ‘prince of polyester’, Dhirubhai has become the undisputed king of industrial India.

In ’07, India had a Bhishma-like person on the throne. But he deferred to his party’s choice of Pratibha Patil as President.

Act Three opens in 2002 when the ‘king’ is dead. Three-and-a-half million middle-class shareholders (the largest in any enterprise in the world), who have become rich beyond their dreams, mourn his death. He leaves behind two highly accomplished sons, and power passes to the older, more sober Mukesh. The younger, flamboyant Anil marries a film star, Tina Munim, a girl with a past. He loves glamour and cultivates powerful politicians, and this does not go down well with the serious, older brother. Mukesh tries to marginalise his brother, but Anil retaliates. Filled with monumental envy for ‘the new king’, he launches an attack on his brother. In the fight, governance failures are revealed for the first time (about the family’s shareholding and the ownership structure of their new telecom venture). The stock plunges and the country watches in fear at the unfolding of an awesome tragedy. Finally, their mother—an anguished, Kunti-like figure caught in the middle—intervenes and splits the kingdom like Dhritarashtra. Three years later, both have prospered beyond their dreams and the value of the empire of each brother is more than double of the undivided kingdom.
The Ambani saga raises troubling moral questions. It is a classic rags-to-riches story—the ascent of a simple village boy who against all odds created a world-class, globally-competitive enterprise that has brought enormous prosperity to millions. But it is also a tale of deceit, bribery and the manipulation of a decaying and corrupt Licence raj. Ambani’s defenders argue that since his enterprises brought so much good to society, what is the harm if he manipulated an evil system and bribed politicians and bureaucrats? The government itself realised it and has been dismantling the system since 1991. But Ambani’s opponents counter, saying that it is never justified to break a law. Ends cannot justify the means. Other defenders believe that the uncertain business world is full of danger and surprise, and a certain amount of deception is necessary for business success.
Anil’s envy of Mukesh is as dangerous as Duryodhana’s. He cannot bear the fact that his brother has far more power and fame than he does. He burns inside each time the media extols Mukesh’s awesome managerial skills. Had the mother not intervened, the rivalry might have hurtled over the top towards a Kurukshetra-like war, which might have destroyed the whole enterprise, and with it the lives of millions of people. The drama is by no means over. In 2009, Mukesh had moved up to being the third-richest person in the world while Anil had slid to being number seven. There continued to be a huge amount of bad blood and dozens of court cases were pending between the two brothers.
But envy had certainly driven Anil to perform to great heights, and the value of the enterprises of each brother was far greater than if they had kept united. Dharma draws a fine line between the positive and negatives sides of competition, and it is easily crossed as we have seen recently in the global financial crisis in 2008. Competition did put great pressure on investment bankers, rating agencies and other players to bend the rules of decent conduct in the market for US housing mortgages. But when they justified their acts as rational behaviour based on the healthy competition, they slipped into the arena of self-deception. To meet the relentless demand of the bottomline and the incentive of a huge but unseemly bonus, many senior executives compromised their character.

Packaging Matters - Why looks are important

#POST 0027
Published in Corporate Dossier ET, July 23, 2010

The sage Uttanka stood in the middle of the desert.  He was suddenly thirsty. He remembered a promise made to him by Krishna long ago, “I will bring you the nectar of the gods whenever you genuinely yearn for it.”  Yes, that is what Uttanka genuinely wanted at that moment: nectar of the gods.   He shut his eyes and wished for it.  He opened his eyes expecting a smiling Krishna to stand there with a cup brimming with sparkling nectar.  There was no Krishna. There was no one, just a vast sandy emptiness stretching to the horizon.
Uttanka was irritated.  He shut his eyes once more and wished for nectar and remembered Krishna fervently.  This time when he opened his eyes, he saw a beggar covered with filth holding a dirty stinking bowl in his hand. It contained water. “Drink,” said the beggar, “You look thirsty.”  Uttanka turned away from him, repelled by his ugliness. The beggar went away.
Uttanka was now parched. In fury he yelled, “Keep your promise, Krishna.”  A voice boomed from the sky, “I did. I forced Indra to offer you a bowl of nectar.   He just did. And you just refused.”  It dawned on Uttanaka that the filthy beggar who offered him a bowl of water was actually Indra offering him nectar.  He had assumed how Indra should look.  He had paid a price for his assumption.




There are many Uttanakas in the corporate world, men who believe packaging is an indicator of content.


Prashant is one such Uttanka.  He is the owner of a medium sized BPO.   One of his young executives, Suhas, came up with a wonderful idea of shift rotation to improve performance and reduce attrition. Suhas was a young man of twenty-six who had spent five years in the BPO learning the ropes.  He did not know English but that did not matter since the calls he serviced were for the local market.  He was not even a graduate; he could not afford to go to college and needed to work.   He was hired by the organization because he came very cheap. But despite his background,  Suhas was extremely sharp and sensitive.  He recognized the problem that the BPO was facing and came up with a deceptively simple way of overcoming it.
Unfortunately, when Suhas presented the solution to Prashant, he found himself being dismissed.  Prashant did not even hear him out completely because he assumed someone as young, poor and barely qualified as Suhas could not possibly solve his problems.  A year later, Prashant hired a consultant.  After six months of investigation, the solution that emerged was exactly what Suhas had come up with almost eighteen months earlier.  Prashant kicked himself for not listening to Suhas as he signed the cheque for his very expensive consultant.




Sandeep, however, has accepted the existence of  Uttankas in the market place.  He has to deal with many governmental agencies. He knows that whenever he asks for an appointment, he will not get it.  He will be shunted from one desk to another. Ministers and bureaucrats simply give him the run around.  In frustration, he came up with a rather shallow idea.  He hired Bob, a tall blonde big built bearded Australian youth, who was keen to gain some experience in third-world markets. Bob was given the designation of Chief Consumer Strategist.  Every time Bob called the government agencies, he was given appointments. Sandeep knew it was because of his Australian drawl.  Every time Bob entered the offices, along with Sandeep, he was taken straight to the minister or the senior bureaucrats, the very same people who never gave Sandeep the time of the day.
In wry amusement, Sandeep observed how everyone ignored the fact that Bob was too young to be a Chief anything.  Bob gave a small speech after which Sandeep made the real pitch. Invariably, the deal would go through. Sandeep was very happy.  One day, he told Bob, “They are so eager to impress the white guy that they are willing to sign on any paper.  That makes you a very useful tool for my business.”  Bob did not feel bad at the racist jibe; he was learning an important lesson in marketing.  For some people what matters more is the packaging, even at the cost of the content.


 - The writer Devdutt Patnaik is the Chief Belief Officer of Future Group

Jobs not only bestow money and power, they also make for wisdom and learning

# POST 0023



Unable to bear his poverty, a priest went to the temple and begged the deity there for a solution. That night the deity left a golden pot in the courtyard of the priest's house. The priest found the golden pot with some water in it. He threw the water out and went to the market where he sold the pot to a merchant. With the money he received, he repaid all his debts and returned home a rich man laden with gifts for his family. Soon after, his family fought over the vast wealth, everyone from his wife to his children to his parents and his siblings demanding their share. 


Unable to bear the mental agony, the priest went back to the temple and complained to the deity. "You have added to my problem not solved it with the golden pot". And deity said, "Golden pot? What golden pot? I gave you the elixir of contentment, enough for you and your family. It happened to be contained in a golden pot. Did you not drink it?" 


Every job is a golden container full of water. The pot is the salary that pays our bills and the designation that pleases our desire to feel significant. But in each job is potentially the opportunity to grow intellectually and emotionally. Each job contains the seed of learning that can germinate in our mind, if we allow it to. Unfortunately, jobs are seen more in economic terms (the pot) than in learning terms (the water). 


Animals work for survival. Humans are the only animals who also work for meaning. Hence in Sanskrit, the same word, artha, is used to indicate economics, politics and meaning. Jobs can give us money and power (the pot) but they can also give us wisdom (the water). Do we drink the water? 

Dont Blame Others for anything that Happens to you - Why Ram is better than Pandava's

It is curious that the forest-exile is central to both the Ramayana and Mahabharata, the twin epics of India. In the Ramayana, Ram goes into exile so that his father can keep his word to his step-mother, Kaikeyi. In the Mahabharata, the Pandavas go into exile following an agreement with their cousins, the Kauravas, when they lose their kingdom in a gambling match.

The reaction to the exile in both epics is startlingly different. In the Ramayana, Ram keeps saying that neither Kaikeyi nor his father should be blamed and the moment should be accepted as an act of destiny. In the Mahabharata, the Pandavas keep blaming the Kauravas and their uncle, Shakuni, for fraud and trickery. Ram looks calm and peaceful, even though he is clearly the victim of palace politics. The Pandavas, on the other hand,are angry and furious, never once taking responsibility for the fact that they gambled away their kingdom.

The loss of kingdom and exile into the forest is a metaphor for misfortune, the bust! But the approach to it distinguishes Ram from the Pandavas, making the former a king worthy of worship.

Managers can be classified into Ramayana Managers and Mahabharata Managers. The former take responsibility for a situation, even if they are not to blame. While the latter do not take responsibility for a situation, even if they are to blame. Ramayana managers typically internalize the problem. Focus on what they can do to manage and resolve the crisis. Mahabharata managers typically externalize the problem and spend a lot of time and energy finding people and processes to blame.

Two days after Raj moved to his new office, his entire team resigned. He was not the cause. A series of events had taken place before he joined the team and he was witnessing the exit process. Since Raj represented the senior management, on the second day of the job, he had to take exit interviews and hear all the outpourings of negative emotions of those leaving. He had to hear all the terrible things the organization had done and how the person before him had betrayed their trust. All Raj could do is go through the process, endure the irritation of the exiting team. He did it with stoicism. Never once getting angry for the awkward position he had been put in by the management, never once complaining to his superiors, never once regretting his decision to take up this new assignment, never once feeling he had been duped into an unpleasant situation that was not of his own creation. In the large organization that he belonged, few knew that he had no role in the crisis. The system revealed him as the manager on duty at the time the resignations were tendered. That somehow made him the cause of the unpleasant effect. Raj took this all in stride as the reality of corporate life and focused on what he could do, rather than what he had no control over.

Sachin on the other hand is on the verge of a nervous breakdown. His predecessor’s mess had created havoc and he was expected to handle it on the day he joined as the boss of the local branch. Customers were screaming, subordinates were yelling and Sachin did not know what to do. So he picked up the phone and complained to the HR department for not warning him of the situation. He called his boss who had hired him and encouraged him to take the post for not preparing him for what he was in for. Sachin felt betrayed by the organization. He blamed the head hunter for tricking him to take up this job. He could not go back to his previous organization; he had burned all his bridges there. He had moved to a new city with his family and there was no going back. This was not the promotion and payrise he imagined. He had been tricked. He was angry. He felt helpless. He felt like a victim.

Both Raj and Sachin are victims of circumstances. Both have taken decisions to move out of their previous situations. Neither expects the current situation to be such a mess. But Raj takes this without complaint. Sachin is full of complaints. Raj, like Ram, does not add to the crisis. Sachin, like the Pandavas, simply adds fuel to the crisis. Not surprisingly, everyone wants Ram as their manager, not Sachin

Management Lessons from Mahabharata

#POST 0009

Mahabharata is not just an epic narrative of the Kurukshetra War or a book of philosophy; rather it's a comprehensive manual on management strategy. Mahabharata encompasses many lessons on management which can potentially be applied to modern business practices.

1. Transform your weakness into strength

Like how Pandavas transformed their weaknesses to strengths during the years of exile, you need to have the urge to improve on your weakness. Mahabarata gives many an examples to highlight the importance of utilizing time to overcoming your skills like how Arjuna went on a mission to attain the Divyastras or Yudhisthira mastered the Game of Dice. You need to have the passion to dedicate adequate time to learn those skills that can help you overcome your weakness only by which you can be a great manager. 

2. Share your responsibilities

Efficiently sharing responsibilities is the mark of a good manager and the great Indian epic gives the best example for this. Pandavas fought the war as one team with one goal in mind while Kauravas lacked the team spirit and they all fought individual wars. It advises the managers not to make the decision-making process a dictatorial one, rather involve everyone so that the best of ideas will pop up. 

3. Know the ground realities
Pandavas spent one year in exile with the poor people and the years of exile helped them to reach out to people from various strata of the society while Kaur 

ava's had no experience of the ground reality as they lived a royal life. Managers need to understand the realities to lead their team in the right direction. They need to break the barriers to get in touch with their subordinates to understand their problems and identify ways to make their work easier

4. Take calculated risks

Krishna has acted as a greatest crisis manager showing how to take calculated risks at the time of crisis. Management is all about taking calculated risks. Shying 

away from challenges is not a sign of management, rather well-assessed decisions to on facing the challenges is the trademark of good management. 

Every God has his own communication method

#POST 0008

Different Offering to Different Gods - A Lesson in Communication 

A young girl and her father were on a pilgrimage. When they reached the temple of Shiva, her father said, “Lets collect bilva leaves and dhatura flowers and offer them to Shiva to show our devotion.” This is what the father and daughter did. Then, they reached a Vishnu temple, and her father said, “Lets collect tulsi leaves and offer it to Vishnu to show our devotion.” This is what the father and daughter did. Then they reached a Ganesha temple. On the father’s advice, the daughter offered blades of grass. At the temple of the Kali, the daughter was told to offer neem leaves and lemons. At the temple of Hanuman, she offered sesame oil.

The daughter was confused, “You say all gods are actually one.” “Yes,” the father confirmed. “Then why different offerings to different gods?” “Because,” said the father, “Each form is different and different forms need to be told the same thing in different ways. Each time we have expressed our devotion but the vehicle of communication has changed depending on the preferences of the recipient. That is why:  the wild bilva and poisonous dhatura for the hermit Shiva, the fragrant tulsi for the romantic Vishnu, the rapidly regenerating grass for Ganesha who was resurrected with an elephant head, the sour lemon and bitter neem for Kali who consumes all things, negativity included, and sesame for Hanuman, the mighty wrestler, feared even by death.”

Often we want to communicate an idea to our customers. But we do not pay adequate attention to the method of communication. The method chosen should be the function of the customer. Different customers need different methods. But most corporations find the idea of customizing methods of communication rather inefficient. So they try to come up with an efficient standard method of communication, often at the cost of effectiveness.

Vishal had learnt in a training workshop the value of an ‘elevator speech’ to express his idea to a customer in less than a minute. He had used it many times. But it never had the desired effect – an appointment with the client. He wondered why. His colleague who had greater success with the elevator speech asked him over a cup of coffee, “In which language was the elevator speech for Mr. Masand?” English, said Vishal. “But you and I both know Mr. Masand prefers speaking in Hindi.”

At that moment the penny dropped. While speaking to the customer, Vishal was focusing on what he wanted to communicate and not on how it was received by the customer. Communication is not so much about the idea but about the customer. The method of communication depends on the capacity, capability and intent of the customer, and not so much on the capacity, capability and intent of the communicator. The reference point is the customer and not the communicator. This is often forgotten.

That is why the same devotion is expressed differently for different gods: bilva for Shiva, tulsi for Vishnu, grass for Ganesha, hibiscus for Kali and sesame for Hanuman!

The value of praise and compliments - Even Gods need to be praised

#POST 0003




An aarti is a ritual in which lamps are waved around the deity so that light falls on the glory of the god or goddess. This is often accompanied by the singing of bhajans, the lyrics of which praise the deity and draw attention to the deity's great accomplishments: the killing of demons, the rescue of devotees, the admiration of all beings. And when the aarti is done and the bhajan concludes, everyone bows and gets to the business of seeking grace and blessing and boons. Why is this not done before the ritual? And what is the point of praising a deity? Isn't divinity all-knowing? Why does a god or goddess need reminding of his or her own achievements?

The ritual of aarti and bhajan draws attention to the value of praise. Everyone likes to hear good things about themselves and their work. It reaffirms one's faith in oneself. It makes one feel validated. It makes one feel acknowledged. It makes one feel alive. That is why rewards are always accompanied by recognition. Everyone wants to be noticed.


In temples, aarti is not restricted to the presiding deity. Aartis is done to all the subsidiary and satellite shrines, even to the doorkeepers of the shrine, to the consorts and to the vehicle or vahana. Everyone is acknowledged, everyone is praised. This increases the chance of divine intervention.
The same is true of the corporate world. In the sea of systems and processes and people, we all like being a face in the crowd, once in a while.

Rangarajan the team leader of a media company knows the value of praise. He introduces each member of his team as 'an expert', 'a stalwart' or a 'key member'. He remembers every little achievement of his team. When Rupesh walked into a meeting, he beamed when Rangarajan says, "Here comes the guy who stayed back late last week to get the files downloaded for the presentation to the client." Swati, the trainee, was in heaven when she heard Rangarajan declare, "The way she maintains records of client meetings is something enviable."

Through these words, Rangarajan empowers his team, makes them feel valued and important. It reveals they are not invisible performers of tasks. They are people who matter. His praise fuels them and they go that extra mile at work.

But just as bhajans do not work without bhakti, praise does not work unless it is genuine. Whatever Rangarajan says is true. None of it is a prepared speech. He constantly looks at what to admire in every person he meets. No person is perfect. But everyone has something of value to offer. It may seem insignificant to others but it becomes significant when noticed. That Sirish always calls his wife at lunchtime has no corporate significance. But Rangarajan turns it into office fuel when he remarks in front of everyone, "I wish my daughter gets a husband as caring as Sirish." It makes Sirish blush. He feels happy. And in happiness, he delivers more.

Is an aarti and bhajan strategic or sincere? Is praise by bosses strategic or sincere? We will never know. What matters is that it makes a difference to the subject being admired. No one ever complained when occasionally they found themselves being praised. So go ahead - do someone's aarti today, or sing a bhajan in someone's praise. And not just of your boss.


- This post has been written by the author Devdutt Patnaik

The Subtle Art of Communication

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Imagine this. You are in the meeting room. Your boss has yet to arrive. People you are supposed to have a meeting with are entering one by one. They too are waiting for their boss. It’s a meeting that is very important for the both of you. This is the first meeting of a potentially crucial deal. They sit and chat with each other. They know each other. You talk to your colleagues. Both parties glance at each other, waiting to make the first move. There is nervousness, awkwardness.


How do you start the conversation? What is the best way to make a first impression or at least ignite a positive spark that lubricates the entire proceedings? Perhaps a clue can be taken from the Hindu ritual for greeting guests and gods. The offering of Haldi, Kumkum and Chaval – turmeric, red powder and uncooked rice grains. HKC, in short.
Haldi-Kumkum is a function popular amongst married women. During festival time, they gather in a house and anoint each other with turmeric and red dye. The same is done when invitations are made to a marriage. Greeting cards are often smeared with turmeric, then red dye, to render them auspicious. Strings with yellow-red color are tied around the wrist. Haldi-Kumkum is about fertility, about growth, about success, about wealth and auspiciousness.


The point to note here is the order. In rituals, the deity is always offered Haldi first, Kumkum later and finally the rice grains. This practice has been followed meticulously across the land over centuries. Like all rituals it defies logical explanation because the answer, more often than not, is symbolic. Through this ritual, something is being communicated subliminally.


The yellow of turmeric is a virile color, the color of the sun, spreading across the sky and reaching out to the earth. When sprinkled over the deity, the idea is to evoke the deity’s grace and power. Turmeric is antiseptic, destroying germs as the gods destroy demons. Red color is the color of potential energy; virgin-goddesses are draped in red saris. Red evokes the sense of the fertile red earth before the rains, holding the promise of crops. Rice is food, sustaining life, the final output that rises out of the earth and is warmed by the sun. Sun, earth, food symbolically represented by turmeric, red dye, and grains of rice. If HKC is how the devotee connects with the deity and gets divine grace, maybe this can provide a template to help strangers engage with each other.


Just as turmeric removes germs and evokes a warm feeling, the first step of interaction with a stranger is to remove all negative energy that may contaminate the space between the two. So the first step of the conversation is to make the other feel secure, less threatened and extremely comfortable. One CEO has a simple trick. After exchanging visiting cards, he usually cracks a joke, an anecdote that makes everyone laugh and establishes the CEO as a nice guy, a friend, a human being. The head of sales of another company, terrible with jokes, trusts the good old smile. If genuine, coming from the heart, people relax and conversation starts. His colleague has a habit of saying something self-deprecating, about how he has to run to the toilet before every meeting because he feels nervous or about how the breakfast he had in the morning is making his stomach rumble. It inevitably makes people smile. “I avoid formality because it is frightening. Even if I have to wear a suit, I speak in Hindi and this I find calms people down.” Haldi makes strangers seem less menacing and more human.


Then comes the Kumkum. Having removed the negative energy with Haldi, it is time to add positive energy very proactively. The best method, says one very successful marketing manager, is to complement the person before us. “Even the gods like Stuti, or praise,” he says. Sometimes, he complements the people before him for their choice of clothes, their pen, their watch maybe, sometimes he praises the city they came from, or a work their company has done. Praise makes a person feel that people are paying attention to him, that he matters. Kumkum makes a person feel included and appreciated. It charges them to bring value to the table.


Only after the Haldi and Kumkum, comes the Chaval: the main conversation, the reason why the meeting takes place. Haldi and Kumkum create the environment where people feel relaxed, less threatened and fully charged to contribute to the meeting. Then the possibility of a fruitful successful conclusion is higher.


Often, for want of time, people go straight for the kill. Quick introductions are followed by a clarification of the agenda and the meeting starts immediately. Meetings then become a process and not a meeting of hearts and minds.


HKC, as an offering, establishes the human connection, generates energy where people are happy to exchange ideas, thoughts and opinions. The results of a meeting initiated with HKC are always positive.


(This is a post by the author Devdutt Patnaik)